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Nearly two hours locked in a terminal, then fifteen dollars for illegal Cubataxi service that left me stranded in El Majá, near Taguasco, a kind of labyrinth without exit where I found an escape to the national highway.

Some strangers, polite casual friends, encouraged me in the middle of the nocturnal depression, to get on a container truck that finally took me to Havana, a city I travel to about twice a year when my meager economy permits me. I imagined the torment of the Mexicans escaping to the U.S., because we almost froze that morning of January 14 with its 44 degrees Fahrenheit pushing us to the city.

Every day I understand more the helplessness with which the government has driven us Cubans. The extra bus trips of the ASTROS company are now stuffed with the mass transportation of soldiers, students and construction brigades. A herd of predators cover the provincial terminals and with the complicity of the transport managers, completely exposed, rob the travelers.

I couldn’t be in a workshop on communications and audiovisuals that the Culture sector would give in Holguin, due to the fears of someone, the evil gossip of the same ones who never allow me in the state temples. But in Havana, Father Joseph Conrado was waiting with open arms in Yoani Sanchez’s house to talk to us, a group of Cubans, about the love of the Virgin of the Charity of Cobre, about her undeniable presence on the edges of the island.

The love of the Virgin of Charity and her infinite goodness is something that can unite us forever, Father J. Conrado said, and I know that it wasn’t an odyssey of over 400 miles in vain.

This was a trip from hell to a sanctuary where I feel I am among friends. My year starts at full speed.